Agnodice

Agnodike or Agnodice ( gr Ἀγνοδίκη perhaps 3rd century BC ) is probably the first female physician of ancient Greece, who has worked as a gynecologist.

It is only known from a report in Hyginus Mythographus. Thus, it was Athenian and could initially acquire their skills only secret or in men's clothing and apply. Your patients if they had but only be accepted after she revealed himself to them as a woman. Probably slandered by envious people, their process was done because there women and slaves were not allowed at that time to work as a doctor. Was saved it - so the story - by their intervention partly superscript patients. After this hearing, the Prohibition Act was repealed.

As Agnodikes teacher Hyginus calls a certain Hierophilos or Herophilos. This could well have been the Alexandrian physician Herophilus of Chalcedon (c. 290 BC ), so that Agnodike had lived in the 3rd century BC.